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Adidas to ramp up marketing spend and eCommerce offering globally

Adidas has unveiled its five year plan to boost its brand desirability, with an increased focus on its eCommerce offering and marketing a major part of it.

Adidas Group has freshly launched its latest business strategy it is calling “creating the new”, a five-year strategy aimed at accelerating growth through increased “brand desirability”, said the company. The new business plan focuses on three major strategic choices: speed, cities and open source.

Firstly, it aims to reduce production lead times and increase in-season creation. Its eCommerce business is a big part of this, with the group looking to push its eCommerce business to above 2 billion by 2020. It will also take an omni-channel approach for this, said the company. The company will evolve production capabilities to dramatically expand product customisation options for its consumers. This will include a shift of its manufacturing from Asia closer to its main markets, which will allow it to be quicker to respond to fast changing trends, according to Reuters.

Next, it will continue growth through a focus on six global key cities: Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo. Across these cities, the adidas Group will over-proportionally invest in talent, attention and marketing spend, it said.

Roland Auschel, executive board member, global sales commented that: “Global brands are created in global cities. If we win running in New York and Los Angeles, we will win running in the US. Therefore, we are committed to win market and mind share in key cities around the globe.”

Finally, Adidas will focus investments across its core brands: adidas, Reebok and TaylorMade. The company has also launched open source to further strengthen the company’s ties with its consumers. Adidas plans to engage with consumers, athletes, retailers so as to build brand advocacy. At present, the company is working together with names such as Stella McCartney, Kanye West, BASF or Google.

Herbert Hainer, CEO of Adidas group, said: “Our new strategy is built on speed, focus and openness. As a result, we will accelerate our growth story and deliver superior returns to our shareholders. I am very much looking forward to ‘creating the new’ together with the adidas Group’s more than 53,000 employees across the globe.”

This move comes after Hainer has already abandoned two long term strategy plans. Hainer earlier remarked in a March 5 earnings call that the company has “turned our entire marketing organisation upside down” to let divisions such as running shoes and soccer cleats take charge of advertising.